


Life is Good

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s afternoon and it’s peaceful and he drifts, his mind filled with something and nothing, and he couldn’t tell you which if his life depended on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is Good

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-series, when Jack is retired.

When he sleeps these days, he sleeps lightly. Funny that. He finally has the time to sleep long and well and he never does. Retirement has brought many changes, most of them good, one of them spectacularly wonderful. But this ... this sleeping light and rising from his bed with the dawn he cannot shake off after so many years of living on the military clock.

He dreams a lot, too, although he rarely remembers them, just feels the echoes, like the very last reverberations of a bell’s chime.

The line between sleeping and waking is often blurred now. He wakes unsure of what is real and what is imagined or half-remembered. Many times, he’s hidden a split-second of panic from the man beside him, certain that he’s waking in the prison that nearly took his soul, or the bombed-out foxhole that nearly took his life.  It passes, though. He breathes through it, fills his lungs with clear, Minnesota air and gets on with the day.

His mind is still sharp, his comments still glib, when he wants them to be. He can still argue his way through the political whys and wherefores, still remember the line-up of his winning high school hockey team. He can still argue black is white and not really care whether he wins or not, because the outcome is the same and the sex is always good and fun and life-affirming afterwards.

Life is good.

Retirement is good, even though he still feels the itch to be Out There sometimes. In essence, he wasn’t Out There for several years before he traded his papers for the man and life he’d needed for so long. But he still feels the call of adventure and calculated risk and the need for something new and invigorating. He’s glad of that, because, for a long time, he feared that the Pentagon had extinguished that desire. Yes, he still feels that call, even if it is somewhat tempered, and, really, he’s okay with that. His challenges now are a little more parochial; keeping up with the dog on the long walks, catching enough fish for supper and beating Daniel at chess, which he usually does but only because he suspects Daniel lets him win. He can’t prove it, though, and if it makes the man happy ...

So, he sits on his porch, rocking lazily in one of the two rocking chairs Carter bought them as a retirement/leaving/wedding gift, dozing in the early summer sun. It’s afternoon and it’s peaceful and he drifts, his mind filled with something and nothing, and he couldn’t tell you which if his life depended on it.

Behind drowsy eyelids, he thinks he sees the shimmer of the stargate and the shape of those birds from the Nox world outlined by a purple sun. None of it is real, and yet, he feels he can reach out and touch the liquid ripples of the event horizon ...

A gentle breeze ruffles his hair, and he startles fully awake. That tantalizing puff of air too reminiscent of something ... what? Something that makes his heart beat too fast and lodges a deep sadness and ache in his heart. Real, or imagined?

He reaches out blindly before he knows he’s reaching out for him and his grasping hand is clasped quickly and tightly. He feels warm fingers twine through his, the skin warm and reassuringly real. He opens his eyes, turns his head, and there’s Daniel, book laid in his lap, sitting beside him, friend and lover. Alive. And he’s smiling gently, lips curling into a half smile that says with loving certainty, “ _It’s okay, I’ve got you, I’m here. Whatever it was, it’s gone. We’ve made it.”_

He squeezes Daniel’s hand. “ _It’s okay. I’m okay. It was nothing. I’m glad you’re here.”_

And he closes his eyes again, still holding the hand, and lets his mind take him where it will, because, in the end, he will always be here and safe. And Daniel will be with him.

 

ends


End file.
